


Warm Welcome

by atom2



Category: Baseball RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Gen, Mention of Demonic Possession, Milwaukee Brewers, Threats of Violence, brief mention of Lorenzo Cain, vampires and demons and all that cool stuff yknow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 15:10:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19231615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atom2/pseuds/atom2
Summary: What do you do when arguably the weirdest pitcher on your new team was born and raised to kill you? Threaten to kill /him/, of course.





	Warm Welcome

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goldenbloodorange](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenbloodorange/gifts).



> we been knew about your a03 account, ms. ballerlibrarian. here's your fic about demon!yaz that i spent way too much time on.
> 
> did i project my deep hatred for Chase Anderson too much in this? i mean anyone that knows he's a tr*mp supporter would too, right? right?? i don't know.

Yasmani is a demon of taste. He is not an occupational scarer, nor does he possess for the hell of it. He occupies all human and humanoid hosts with tact to make up for the lack of consent. He cleans up after himself, too, and ensures no emotional scarring occurs afterward.

Lorenzo Cain begs to differ.

Okay, Lorenzo has no hard feelings. Yaz hid in the mirror to scare anyone. His victim just so happened to be Lo, who just so happened to jump two feet in the air and scream like a little girl. And everyone _just so happened_ to laugh their asses off at the sight of Yaz emerging from the glass to help Lorenzo up.

 

Generally, the relationship Yaz has with his new teammates is positive. He turns enemies into friends, or acquaintances intimidated into amiability, with relative ease.

Josh Hader tried to kill Yaz on the first day of spring training because of some confusion with his vampire hunting instincts. He did not see the top and bottom rows of sharpened teeth instead of a single set of fangs, or the retracted horns. Nor did he notice the dull eye color, a perfect canvas for a total blackout.

While the silver cross around Josh's neck still makes Yasmani's heart skip a beat (don't even mention the daggers hidden in Josh's sleeves), their interactions have turned more civil. Josh apologized once he realized that the thing emitting the smell of the antichrist was going to be his new catcher. He saves a seat for Yaz at every meal and every flight. They embrace after each game they close.

Josh has helped Yaz make Milwaukee his home. It'll still take a while for Yaz to let Josh near his kids.

 -

"Do you know what's wrong with Chase Anderson?" Yaz asks out of the blue, sliding his dinner tray onto the table, right in front of the empty chair Josh reserved.

"In general? He always looks like he's sunburnt-"

"I mean, yeah, but no."

"Then _what_?” Josh narrows his eyes, as he does whenever Yaz isn’t making sense. Even the little hairs on his chin look annoyed. It’s speculated that peeking out is remnants of sass left over from when he had a very low tolerance for evil entities. Albeit he still does, just not the ones with the last name Grandal.

“He’s always looking at me like he wants to-” Yaz makes a throat-slashing motion and clenches his teeth- “off me and the rest of my bloodline like I killed too many of his calves.”

“Well, it doesn’t take a genius to know how…” Josh waves his hand as if he wants Yaz to complete his sentence. “...religious Chase is.”

“Pot calling the kettle black,” Yaz mumbles, leaning back out of their gossip-conducive huddle. He decides to start picking away at his food in some attempt to avoid it getting cold, like it matters to him.

“But _I_ digress. At least Chase is a...” The hunter cranes his neck around Yaz to eye Chase, who’s sitting across the room. Chase notices and gives a humble salute of acknowledgement. Josh tips his head up in greeting, lips turned up in a fake smile, before getting back to Yaz. “...pacifist?”

Yaz talks with his mouth full. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“I’m just sayin',” Josh shrugs. “He doesn’t want to kill you, he wants to… exor...cise... you.”

The look Josh is giving Yaz is one begging for belief, but one that senses Yaz’s skepticism. The demon stares right back into Josh’s eyes, standing his ground alongside all his doubts.

 

Josh has never had a way with words. Yaz sometimes finds himself imagining Josh's intelligence bubbling underneath a layer of meat-headedness and disguised as tricks of his trade: pitching and hunting. He may not know the right things to say, or how to say them, but he's not an idiot. Spare a couple of incidents.

This being one of them.

 

"Josh," Yaz begins like a parent doling out a punishment to a child, "you know Chase hunts demons, right?"

Josh, realizing his error, sighs and scratches the back of his neck. "Well, Chase didn't bother telling me that.

"So, yeah, he probably wants to kill you." Josh eyes Yaz’s tray. “Food tasting okay? No holy water? Bleach?”

Yaz takes a look, too. Being a demon, he does not have the typical diet of a human, since he is a physical manifestation of a spirit rather than a creature with a beating heart. Thus, he can bypass any need for nutrients, since he is simply an existence housed in a fleshy shell. Instead of a varied, balanced diet, he sticks to one that's traditional for his kind.

A protein-rich _human_ menu.

The bowl of veins presented in a similar sense to noodles is comical. Yaz almost feels stupid for saying it looks good. And, to answer Josh's question, they are not noticeably poisoned.

"No," Yaz replies while shaking his head and turning to look back at Josh. "But Chase would be kind of fucked if he killed me. Like, would you rather have me or Triple-A dude catching your pitches-”

“Hey, Chase!” Josh says to the space behind Yaz in a burst of sudden glee. Sure enough, Chase stopped by to say hello, standing a little too close; just enough to make Yasmani’s insides churn with every breath cast down his neck. Even the warmth of Chase’s presence is enough to make Yaz writhe.

“Hey, what’s up? You two seem a little tense.” Chase must have observed how condensed their discussion was; packed like two sardines whispering secrets to each other.

 

Now, Josh can’t help what happens next. Chase is one of those people who take the words ‘personal’ and ‘space’ out of their pocket dictionaries before entering any social situation. So, like any excitable white dude looking to get their friends to ‘chillax’ or whatever, Chase goes in for the reassuring shoulder grab-’n’-shake. But it's not for Josh, who would have reluctantly obliged the friendly jiggling.

The moment Chase swoops down on Yaz, but before he can make actual contact, Yaz is ten steps ahead. Sensing Chase’s movement, and wanting nothing to do with it, he takes the necessary actions to avoid wanting to tear his own skin off. Yaz snaps his head in Chase's direction as if he's an owl, smooth and sudden, startling Chase frozen. He's not shocked, but he's stuck questioning Yasmani's adamant turn.

"If you touch me," Yaz begins in a tone creeping towards hysteria, mocking politeness, and paired with a Cheshire cat grin, "I'll kill you."

"O-kay," says a retracting Chase, his hands returning to his sides. He's at a loss for what he should do after that. With Yasmani's serial deadpan, Chase has every reason to believe the threat was genuine. "Point taken. I guess I'll … let you two diffuse whatever you need to."

He doesn't leave until a second later, still as casual as he was before, but definitely freaked out. Once he's out of earshot, Yaz can't help but take Chase's advice about diffusion:

"Goddamnit!"

Yaz cringes at the memory of that whole interaction, tipping his head to the ceiling as he yells. He lowers it when he realizes his conflict. On the one hand, he's mad at himself for deliberately advertising his hatred for Chase straight to his face. But he is also extremely uncomfortable with whatever Chase wanted to do to him. For lack of a better statement, he asks Josh, "Why does he talk like a yoga instructor from Alabama?"

Josh laughs, "I don't know, brother. Let's just eat our food and brood."

When Josh points out the rhyme in his last sentence, Yaz swats him away with the back of his hand.

"Fuck off, hunter boy."

But Yaz can't help but smile.

**Author's Note:**

> liek and subscreeb :^)


End file.
